Factions in Space
by SuperJ001
Summary: What happens when Ender, Tris, Petra, Four, Bonzo and hundreds of others go to the battle school, forced into politically built factions that make little to no sense given the situation? This is.
1. Chapter 1

CHAPTER ONE- INITIATION

I drank the dauntless faction black liquid, cut my hand with its sharp rock, and forever changed my fate.

Immediately after the choosing was finished my new faction and I ran to the train and boarded.

"Name?" It was a girl, fairly attractive and clearly _not _dauntless born.

"Andrew." I slurred my name I was so nervous "You?"

She thought. It was a known fact that you could choose a new name with a new faction. "Tris"

I nodded. "Any idea where we're headed."

"Headquarters." She said. I decided she used to be a stiff since she wore no makeup and was wearing boring clothing. I was an erudite, though only by blood. I got out of _that _hell hole as soon as I could. It was time to _do_ not just _think_ about doing.

We got to the dauntless building. "JUMP!" Screamed a man on the top of the building.

I shrugged, and tumbled off, confident that if everyone in dauntless before me had done it, though it might not look it, it was relatively safe. My landing was off and I tripped, falling near flat on my face. A moment later Tris landed, clumsily, but on her feet.

There soon assembled a body of people around us, all hot and sweaty from the hours sitting in silence during the choosing.

"Alright everybody shuddup!" A boy of around 17 or 18 stood atop a small podium "You have a choice, if you wish for pure Dauntless, jump off this side of the building. If you want to rid yourself of everything you've ever known, follow me down this one." The boy jumped, the entire crowd ran to the edge and looked over. He fell and fell far below the ground level, into an abyss none could see.

I looked for barely a moment before pushing Tris off and jumping after her.

We fell for a good minute before finally landing on a pillow like device. We both quickly vacated the pillow to the urges of the older boy who was to our left.

"What the _hell_ was that for?" She demanded

"Wow, that's not very stiff-like. Where'd you learn that word?" The older boy cat called her.

Tris slapped him across the cheek quickly and immediately turned back towards me.

"I assume you were going here anyway." I told her "You're not an idiot, the other one probably led to spikes that impale you or something equally gruesome."

"No." The boy who had just been slapped was now smiling pleasantly, eavesdropping completely without a shadow of pretext. "It led to the normal barracks for new recruits. We just needed a few of you for something special and didn't feel like wasting our time on cowards. That's the grounders' job."

Tris glared at him.

"What are we going to do?" I asked, as around 10 other kids landed as basically one unit, all clearly Dauntless born.

"Let's wait for the rest to land." He told me.

I nodded. We waited for a half hour in silence before he finally spoke again. "You have no idea what you just signed up for. You have no idea what we have planned for you. You were told only that this is a different kind of dauntless."

I looked around. Even I could tell who was dauntless born and who wasn't, though this had never been my strong suit. There was a physical divide forming. On my side were the recruits and the other held the borns.

"I'm going to tell you all right now that none of you will see your family ever again. None of you will see your homes again and most of you won't see this planet again." Rumbling sounded around us "Welcome to the dauntless space initiative."

The boy buckled into a seat belt. Next to him were exactly five seats. There were nearly forty of us.

"May the best man win!" He screamed over the roaring engine. "Take off is in one minute!"

The dauntless born began to ready themselves for a fight.

"STOP!" I screamed "The seats are plenty large for more than one person. We need to find out who's the heaviest and put them on the seat itself and put everyone else on their laps. We can all survive this takeoff!"

The new recruits were all willing to agree, but the dauntless born, who were the clear favorites if it came to a fight, were less so.

I pointed to one of the largest and angriest looking dauntless borns "You should take this one. I'll sit on your lap along with you, you, you, you, you, and you." I pointed to more, less menacing looking dauntless.

No one moved "Look we don't have all that much time let's go!"

They slowly began to work together, though grudgingly. Then one of the smaller dauntless borns punched a new recruit as he tried to sit on his lap. "Hell no!"

I stood, making the boy in my lap fall off "Stop! We don't have time for your shit! We can squabble to our hearts content when we're safe!"

**TEN, NINE, EIGHT**

The conflict subsided and we got into position.

**SEVEN, SIX, FIVE**

We were all ready to go.

**FOUR, THREE, TWO, ONE.**

The blast off was crazy. I'm not sure how far underground we had been but we very soon were not. We had no windows but I was confident we were in the sky after only 30 seconds or so.

After about five minutes the boy who had 'welcomed' us unbuckled himself

"Alright." He said "Congratulations. You're all alive and going to battle school."


	2. Gigantic dump, ch 2 through ch 14

_**Ok, I know this is way more than one chapter, but I didn't feel like splitting it up. Deal with it, there are bigger issues in this world.**_

_**Also, If this doesn't get at least 10 views and a review by Friday I'm not going to bother writing another chapter- it's a lot of work and I wrote this over the summer, now I'm kind of getting more into Legend of Korra and so I'm considering writing something on that.**_

CHAPTER TWO

We soon got to the 'battle school' and a door opened to our left

"Get off my ship you turd faces!" The boy yelled at us, herding us out.

We all shuffled off quickly. He hopped off himself.

"Now elect a king and four lords. King's in charge of everything you guys do as a group and the lords each have a smaller group to discipline."

We all just stared at him, stunned "NOW!" He yelled

I expected an awkward silence but it didn't happen.

"I believe I should be king because-" A dauntless member was cut off by another before he could even start

"I'm a natural leader and I know how dauntless works as a culture."

"I studied space when I was at erudite. I know a lot about space and why it's important" said a boy I knew from my old life, he was named Peter.

"I-"

"SHUT UP!" Tris screamed at them all "Just shut up!" Everyone was immediately looking at her "I don't know about any of you but I have one detail to go off of. Andrew saved about 30 of our lives back there when the rest of us were ready to kill each other. I vote for him as king."

A murmur of agreement sounded around the room, although mostly on the side of the new recruits.

"I could have thought of that!" It was the same boy who had punched a recruit earlier "That doesn't make him special!"

I agreed with him. It didn't. I was completely normal. Anyone could have thought of that.

"Well let's put it to a vote. All in favor of Andrew." Tris looked around "That's 17. All apposed." She frowned "That's 21."

Even if I had voted it wouldn't have mattered.

There was silence. "So," Tris said "Who do you all vote for?"

"Me" "Me" "No me" "I believe that I would-"

"YO!" Peter yelled "Let's just vote candidate by candidate."

"Who vote's for me?" He raised his own hand "Ok, that's one. Andrew." This time I voted. "One two three… ok that's 18. What's your name again?"

"Brian." Said the short dauntless boy.

"OK." Peter said "Who votes for Brian? Alright that's 16. That means Andrew is our king. I assume that also means Brian is one of the lords as am I."

Brian laughed. "What about you voting for yourself makes you lord?"

"Everyone" I spoke for the first time since the beginning of the conversation. "I want you to split into four even groups and then decide who your lords are from there."

Immediately I had _two_ groups. The dauntless born and the recruits. I decided not to intervene just yet.

Brian started talking amongst the dauntless while Tris began to work things out on the recruit side of things.

Soon enough the recruits had elected Peter and Tris as their two lords. Brian was still having trouble over in the dauntless section

"Let's go girls!" the older boy, who _still_ hadn't introduced himself told us "We have dinner at six whether you lot are ready or not."

Those who had them looked at their watches, 5:56.

I walked over to the dauntless born. "We're voting."

"Who votes Brian?" All of them raised their hands. "OK. He's one of our lords. Who are the other candidates?"

I faced silence. "I see." I thought for a moment.

"OK. If you guys can't find someone I guess I'll have to ask the other group to lend a helping hand."

Brian's face grew red with anger. He was about to protest when I cut him off.

"Or, you guys could find another person. Come on, you were all begging earlier. At least one of you must still want to be in charge." I edged them on as individuals not as a group. I just wanted one of them. This probably wasn't going to matter anyway, Brian was just going to take over their 'manor' or whatever you call it. I just wanted to go to dinner and eat, I was starved, and supposedly dauntless food was great.

A tall happy looking dude who was clearly of African origins spoke "I guess if no one else wants the job I could do it. I'd be happy to help you all out if you ever need anything."

"What's your name?" I asked him

"Thomas." He told me

"Ok, who votes for Thomas?" Majority. "Good. Now let's go to dinner." I said, relieved

CHAPTER THREE

"You're welcome" Tris walked up next to me

"I was going to thank you." I told her "And don't pretend you didn't benefit yourself through your little stunt there."

"Oh I'm not." She walked ahead so as not to arouse more suspicion then there already was within the dauntless born.

Thomas walked up to me. "Enderew" he mispronounced my name but I didn't correct him "Do you have any idea what we are doing up here?"

"Nope. I know nothing more than you do, sorry."

He nodded "Why won't they tell us anything."

"They're not Candor that's for sure." I agreed.

We walked into the dining hall. There were hundreds of kids. Not all of them were dauntless. Some were Erudite, so I assumed they represented all the factions.

An old man got up in the front of the hall "Everyone quiet down please." He said. "I would like to welcome the newest launchies. A group of Dauntless born led by their king Andrew."

Cheers from Dauntless, polite claps from everyone else except for Erudite who sat in contempt, clearly towards me as an individual and not the group as a whole.

"They will train for a month before picks on their company will begin. Kings and Queens please refrain from attracting launchies to your armies before pick week. That is all." He sat down and food was brought in by Abnegation staff. I noticed how they looked at Tris and the others. They suppressed their distaste in a way Erudite didn't bother, but that didn't make it any less cruel.

I sat down in the place reserved for the king, at the head of the table, and waited for my lords to sit in their seats. Tris took the one directly to my left, and Peter took the one to my right. Further away was Thomas and Brian, who stood tall as if he himself were at the head of the table.

"Well I don't know about all of you but I'm starved." I said, grabbing a piece of what looked like chicken. I thought for a moment of what it must really have been. Then I thought better of it and tried to just eat it. It tasted plenty good despite its questionable heritage.

The others around me followed suit.

Brian and the boys nearby him whispered to one another. I wondered how the people from Abnegation and Erudite had been chosen. Probably just an IQ test for Erudite but Candor and the others were more questionable. What was the point of bringing us up here? There were over a thousand of us. They must not have been doing it just as an experimental thing.

Once I was nearly finished with my meal, the boy who had originally gotten us off the ground came up to me. "You have the battle room after you get settled in your barracks."

"The what?" I asked distractedly "What are we doing up here?"

"You'll be told when you get there." He told me.

"What's your name?" I asked "You never introduced yourself."

"See you there." He told me, and left without an answer.

**_Ok, I know that was an extremely short one but I'm putting the next one out at the same time so it's kosha._**

CHAPTER FOUR

When we were all finished with dinner we followed the orange light (I hate orange) up a flight of stairs and around a hallway to our barracks.

Being king I had been given a special room in the middle. It was a circular room with a step down to it at the door. Around mine was a much larger room. In each of the four corners was a queen sized bed that was not a bunk, for the lords I guessed, and the other beds were all twin sized and in a row, extremely uniform.

I stopped to consider. "Lords each get the corner beds but we're splitting up the other sleeping arrangement. Now we need to figure out who is in which lordship or whatever we're calling it."

We soon had four even groups, two of new recruits and two of dauntless born.

"Good. Now I want one from Brian's group, then one from Peter, then Thomas, then Tris." Everyone froze up for a second, confused. "Well begin."

I had decided we needed to break down these barriers. I still didn't know what we were doing as a group but you don't elect leaders unless there is a need for them to lead. If we were to work us one group we first had to stop being two.

Soon we were settled in. "OK, I don't know where we're going but the guy who brought us here wants us to go to the 'space room' or something like that, so let's go."

I wasn't really one for fake formality. There was no reason for me to think I had any special importance other than an informal 'people should listen to him' kind of a… feeling, so I had decided to be open about just being another one of them.

We followed the orange lights up another flight of stairs and got to a landing. The gravity was clearly off. I felt gravity to one side of the large hole going into the giant room which was directly above us. Standing, upside down and holding onto a railing inside of the large room was the boy who had brought us up in the first place.

"WELCOME TO THE BATTLE ROOM!" He shouted, for no noticeable reason other than to hear it echo off of the walls. "HERE YOU WILL LEARN TO FIGHT IN NULL GRAVITY. THE RULES OF THE GAME ARE SIMPLE. IT'S CALLED CAPTURE THE FLAG AND YOU CAPTURE THE OTHER TEAMS FLAG. THEN YOU BRING IT BACK TO YOUR SIDE AND MAKE SURE THEY DON'T STEAL YOURS." He turned upright and hopped into the corridor where we were. He was now in the gravity of the corridor, sideways for us. "You may begin." He spoke this time.

I clambered clumsily into the corridor gravity and then out into the null g. I clung to the wall a moment and then, with only a slight push off of the wall, I flew straight at the opposite side of the room.

I looked at my 'kingdom,' all but Tris, who had followed a half step behind me were still in the gravity.

It was my turn to yell without cause. "PETER AND THOMAS, YOU'RE ONE GROUP, TRIS AND BRIAN YOU'RE THE OTHER. THE GAME STARTS IN" I looked at my watch "FIVE MINUTES."

Tris shot back to the other side and started to gather her group together. Thomas and Peter did as well. Brian stayed where he was and allowed his group to assemble in the gravity. I thought about what I would have done. Probably in null g to let everyone get a baring, but to be honest I wouldn't have made them play on the first day.

Thomas and Peter brought their troops to the opposite side. I looked more closely at my 'peasants' or whatever it was they wanted me to call them. There were 38 of them in total, 39 including myself. Tris and Peter both had nine kids under them, while both Thomas and Brian had only nine. So that was why I had won. There had been more new recruits than dauntless born.

"Enderew!" Thomas yelled from across the room "We should start!"

I shook my head "Not just yet. Start working out a strategy together."

"So _Enderoo _what kind of strategy should we use?" Brian purposely mispronounced my name, furthering what Thomas had done by accident "You're the _Erudite_."

I laughed "Yeah no I got nothing. I'm as helpless and stupid you are." I had to make a conscious effort not to act like the dauntless I was. I couldn't just fly over there and punch him. I had to use my brain by not involving myself. "I used to be Erudite, but then I flunked out."

Brian glared at me, seeing just like the rest of my 'kingdom' how I had just narrowly darted out of his challenge of authority.

I waited around letting everyone get their footing as well as looking around myself. There was a cluster of floating rock like things. I didn't have to fly over to them to know that they were hard. Very hard. It was Dauntless not Indulgence.

"Alright!" I shouted so everyone could hear "Everyone touch your starting wall!" Even Brian's group touched their wall the first time I asked. "Five! Four! Three! Two! One! BEGIN!"

Tris and four others immediately shot forward to take the flag. I couldn't help but hope she would make it. They hit the opposite side, hard. I heard something snap. One of the girls cried out in pain.

"Medic!" I yelled at the older boy.

He just shook his head, laughing. "I can see from here she only fractured it." He turned to the girl "SUCK IT UP!"

Brian grabbed the girl and threw her straight into one of the floating rocks. Her back curved in a way that seemed impossible.

However, while Brian's troops were all worried about her, Tris had brought the others in her group straight to the flag.

"NOW!" She yelled. Immediately all of the remaining kids from her team went with Thomas straight at the troops of the other team, creating a giant mess of confusion.

I realized this was exactly what the two of them had intended. In the confusion, all four in Tris' little spec op were flying off in different directions, any one of them could have had the flag so it was impossible for Peter and Brian's troops to know which one to follow.

That was when I realized I didn't see Peter in the mess that was his flag area. I looked over to the opposite side and saw him, a boy who seemed to be an old abnegation from the way was cowering away from something this different and out of the norm and a girl who was clearly dauntless born and ready for a fight.

The three were sitting on the flag, not taking it anywhere or doing anything special. Just waiting. I looked on with curiosity, why weren't they taking the flag and getting out of there?

Then I realized. Tris, without realizing they were there came hurtling towards her flag with a look of victory in her eyes. The dauntless grabbed her and ripped their own flag away from her. She then threw Tris back into the confusion on the other side. Immediately afterwards she handed the flag over to the abnegation boy who also had the enemy flag. Peter went flying back as if he had the flag and darted around crazily, with the dauntless girl pushing everyone out of his path.

"Get Peter!" Thomas screamed to his troops, who were still in a giant mess of confusion from where they had been.

Meanwhile, the abnegation boy was getting through by floating along as if he didn't have control of his body. He was even kicking his feet to make himself appear even more helpless, however, slowly, he was making progress towards his goal.

"Surprise!" Shouted the older boy. "Something to make this a little more interesting!" He threw guns from where he had been standing or hanging depending on how you looked at it. I counted. Sixteen of them in total. Not enough for everyone, but enough for both teams.

I thought for a moment. What would I do at that point if I were a lord? I would probably throw four or five tough guys over to take the guns and make sure no one else got them but keep the rest in the center of the fight.

Tris was the first to get to the gun. She shot the abnegation boy who had both flags. He immediately froze. He continued on his path but he could not move. She smiled and began to shoot more kids. She had taken out both Peter and Brian as well as about four other kids before a dauntless born of Brian's shot her. She froze, glued to the gun. I looked at the abnegation boy with his two flags. Thomas, who suddenly seemed to notice it, probably because Tris had shot him first, pushed off of the wall he was holding onto with three other boys. The four of them grabbed onto the boy and went to their flag.

They got there and immediately a magnetic pull from all of our suits made us all fall towards their gate, the one opposite where we had come in.

As we fell Brian screamed how unfair it was to just throw guns in at the last second like that. Answers to his protests ranged from 'yeah screw you old man' to 'Brian suck it up!' I for one leaned more to the latter answer, though I didn't plan on sharing.

We all landed, almost all ungracefully.

"Everybody quite down. Your king will talk to you when he gets back to your barracks. For now, lords take everyone back and _Ender-ooo_ is going to stay here with me." Some laughed at his pronunciation while others scowled. I still couldn't really tell if I was liked or if they just voted for me so Brian wouldn't be king.

They all left, not marching or anything fancy, just a group of Dauntless kids running around being idiots.

Once they left the boy spoke to me. "You did that faster than I've seen any king do in the last two years I've been doing this."

"Did what?" I asked

"Choose your lords." He told me. "You haven't even been king for a day and I can tell you right now you are going to be a king of a real kingdom in a few short years."

I was taken aback "I'm not sure how close an eye you've been keeping on my army but Brian is challenging me every step of the way."

"And you've been winning every step of the way. Tell me the truth, what did the test tell you you were?"

"Dauntless" I lied. "It told me Dauntless."

"Ok so not Candor." He told me. "Was it Abnegation? Erudite?"

"Dauntless" I lied again. "It told me I was Dauntless."

He shrugged "Alright don't tell me. Just keep this up. We need someone like you."

'For what?' I wanted to ask, but I thought better of it.

**_See it's tosh kosh. Don't worry be happy. Guhnite._**

CHAPTER FIVE

As soon as I got back to the barracks I walked over to the girl who had snapped something.

"Sorry I couldn't help during the battle. You alright?"

She nodded vigorously "Oh yeah I didn't break anything." She held up a snapped piece of wood "I was just the distraction."

Tris came over, smiling "It really worked out quite well, although props to you John!" She nodded towards the abnegation boy who had at one point had both flags "That was smart."

I really was having a difficult time seeing her as a stiff, despite having only been as a group for less than a day.

"Thank you Ms. Arkanian. I mean Tris." He quickly corrected himself but it was too late. Everyone now knew her real name.

There was silence.

For more than a minute, the entire kingdom, 39 kids, were silent.

"Like Beatrice Arkanian? Like the daughter of Petra Arkanian, the counsel women of Abnegation?" As anyone would have expected it was a Candor born recruit.

Tris stood still. Then she shrugged as if it was nothing "Yeah I was. But now I'm just another Dauntless like all of you." Still, the air was stale and everyone on that side of the barracks were looking at her.

There was a long silence before I spoke "Who thought of making such a mess in the middle when Tris and her group stole the flag?"

"Me" Thomas seemed to realize what I was doing. "I knew we weren't good enough to make something that involved the entire army actually work so I decided to make something that is supposed to not work."

I continued to move the conversation away from Tris' heritage. "Well I'm impressed, although hopefully at some point we'll be good enough that we can… you know… actually have a strategy other than screw up the other teams." It was a risky move to joke around so loosely. Thomas could either act buddy buddy along with me or he could take offence and make me look like an idiot.

"Yeah hopefully." He laughed "Ok on a completely different subject, do any of you have any idea why the hell we're here?" Another subject change. A smart move since it involved more people so that they wouldn't wonder off and start gossiping about Tris.

We continued the conversation despite the fact that none of us really knew, even the expats of Erudite.

Eventually, I was able to detach myself from the conversation and for the first time I went into my room.

It was much more impressive than I had originally thought. It had a king sized bed (no pun intended), a 3D hologram, a ping pong table, and stairs leading both up and down. Curious, I walked down. There was a locked door that I could not open. I knocked on it.

"Shuddup launchie!" The door opened and revealed the boy who had brought us up from space. "You can't go downstairs from your room. I can go in yours and check on you and your little 'kingdom'" he made quotation marks with his fingers "but you don't go down."

"Sorry." I said. "Wait so what's above me?"

"Just your bathroom and a kitchenette." I noticed that music was playing in his room and it smelled of alcohol. I was mildly curious where he had gotten it.

"K. Thanks." I told him

He nodded, and pushed passed me to go up the stairs. "Which lords are you going to get rid of ASAP?" He asked, grabbing a clicker next to my bed

I stood still, inquisitive "Don't worry launchie. They can't hear you. The king's chamber is sound proof." He pressed a button and the walls turned to glass. "They don't know a thing that's going on in here. I could strip at start humping the wall and they wouldn't know."

I stared at him 'why would you want to?' but I didn't ask.

"So for real? Who's a goner?"

I considered for a moment, and decided that it must actually be sound proof and some kind of one way mirror so they couldn't see.

I pointed "Brian is a nuisance, I guess I want him out."

The boy nodded. "Name's Four by the way. Wait, so remind me which's the other recruit, and how'd you make him your bitch?"

I shook my head "Brian was a Dauntless born. It's me that's the recruit."

Four stared at me, with a questioning look. "You're one of the best newbs I've seen all year, and you're not Dauntless?"

"Well I am _now_" I told him "I just wasn't _yesterday_" I wondered how he got his name but decided against asking.

Four laughed. "Kid you're an idiot. But a good idiot. I like you." He sized me up "You're sure as hell not Candor, otherwise you would be asking me a thousand questions about what's upstairs. No Abnegation could ever be ballsy enough to do what you've done. Amity wouldn't admit to hating this 'Brian' kid. So that's leaves Erudite?" He said it with a sad look on his face

"Sorry to disappoint." I told him

Four laughed. "Well _Ender-ooo_ I get first choice of your troops so which one person is the best there?"

Now I finally understood why he bothered to spend an entire day working with us instead of his own army. He wanted inside info on my troops.

"Myself." I told him, with a twinkle of the eye.

He rolled his eyes "Fine, don't tell me. Although I guess you know no more than I do."

"Goodnight." I told him, showing him down the stairs.

"Was I just excused?" He raised his eyebrows menacingly. The air in the room immediately went sour "Listen Ender-ooo, you don't give orders to someone downstairs. You take them. I get crap from downstairs too, and I take it."

I nodded, albeit sarcastically. He slapped me across the face. Blood trickled from my nose but I said nothing.

"Let's play ping pong." He demanded.

"Fine" I wasn't going to back down from a challenge.

He served hard against me. I smacked it back with good placement. Ping pong had been one of the few ways of having a study break that they allowed us back at Erudite.

He smacked it back quickly, though without much placement. I got side spin on it and Four wasn't able to stop me from getting the point.

Four smiled. I still couldn't really get a read on him, although I could definitely tell he was starting to like me. As he retrieved the ball I looked over at my army. Some were asleep. Though neither Brian nor Tris were. Instead, they were turning in their beds.

Bean looked out as well, shaking his head "You little people wear so much clothes, my army is all naked or half way so I guarantee it.

"And you let them?" I asked

"Of course I do, it's hot, and I'm not their baby sitter, their big boys and girls. They can sleep how they like." Four shared.

I nodded as he served the ball "So what is downstairs?" I asked as broadly as I possibly could so he could tell as much or as little as he wanted.

"Well I have a hot tub."

I laughed

He stared at me quizzically. "I'm not joking." He hit the ball back at me "And Thadeus, above me, has an original Xbox One and a PS3, 4 and 5, and he hacked into the system so he gets all the games in their ansible with one of the old curvescreen TVs from earth."

"Wait how do you know?" I asked as I dove forwards towards a ball that hit the net and went over

"Cause I've been in his room." He slammed a winning shot down on me "If they let you, you can go to any king in the entire castle's room, it's just that most don't unless you help them out somehow."

"So how'd you help him out?" I served with side spin and aced him

"Well," He tossed it back to me "I assume you smelled the alcohol upstairs, I don't drink it myself, I sell it up the castle."

I nodded. "So other than a visit to his room how does he pay you?" I was curious enough to put down my paddle.

"Ways." He said mysteriously, nodding towards my paddle.

After another 15 points or so Four retreated up to his room and closed the door. Immediately I walked down the stairs to see my kitchenette and bathroom. The kitchenette was small but it had plenty of good ingredients. I had been forced to memorize some cook books when I was little and I still had some recipes available to me. I thought for a moment and decided to wait till morning.

CHAPTER SIX

When I woke I saw Brian was up, though few others were. I walked out of my room to meet him on the way to the showers.

"What do you want _Ender_?" He didn't even bother to finish it off with an ooh.

"To take a shower same as you." I had one in my room but he didn't need to know that.

He shrugged and we walked into the room. We were safely out of earshot of the army

"Look Brian," I told him "I don't know about you but I'd like to do well and advance through the ranks as a Dauntless. If you have even half a brain you know that for right now that means working together. I don't like you and you don't like me and that's fine. But before we can get back to hating each other we need to get through this first month of training. So let's suck it up and do it."

Brian stared at me "What the hell is wrong with you?" He demanded.

Ok. Not exactly what I had been going for.

"Why do you think that just because I disagreed with you a couple times I hate you? I do hate you, don't get me wrong, but I don't hate Tris or Peter, just you. I'm not some kid who has a dream of a perfect fairy world where no foreigners ever join Dauntless. And I'm not some tradition freak either. I came here to get away from all that. The reason I hate you is because you aren't a real Dauntless. Everyone else here got Dauntless in their test. You got Erudite. You're not here because you're fearless. You're here to take down our faction."

I stared at him. How could he know what my test scores said? "I don't know how you know that but the test is just a suggestion. I chose Dauntless for other reasons."

"Why?" He demanded "Why did you choose us? So you could run away from a bad family, cause I got news for you, that's cowardice. So you could spy on us? So you could take us over from the inside?"

He punched me in the stomach. I spit at the ground "Aren't you supposed to be Dauntless born?"

He was about to punch me again when Tris came in and tripped him. Before he knew what was happening she had him in a head lock on the ground.

"Let him go." I told her

Tris was hesitant, but she listened, eying him with contempt.

"Brian, come into my room."

He nodded, angrily, but aware I had control.

I walked ahead to turn off the one way mirror. I also realized I could retract either stair case. I retracted only the one leading down.

Then I let him in. "Last night while you were all sleeping Bean, the king of the age group above us, came down those stairs and beat me up. He forced me to play him in ping pong and told me how I was the single worst king he had ever seen. Then he told me why each of my lords were awful. The reason I wanted to speak with you was because he didn't have nearly as much to say about you as any of the others." I hoped with all my heart that Bean did not decide to walk down the stairs right then. "I wanted to ask how you lead your lordship."

"Flattering me isn't the way." He rejected my little speechlit

"So what is?" I asked, dropping the act.

"Prove yourself Dauntless." He told me "Prove yourself worthy."

He walked out, unexcused. I considered stopping him, then shrugged, pulled the stairs back up, and went down the stairs to grab a soda from my fridge.

A knock came on my door. I turned it to glass to see who it was. It was Thomas.

I turned both stair cases and the glass off before opening up the door. "Hi." I said "What do you want?"

"Just to ask you if you're alright."

"I'm fine" I said, realizing my root beer was still in my hand. I smiled as I closed the door. "Just exhausted is all."

He nodded "Fair. This place is sweet."

I nodded my head "That it is. That it is."

"Thank god it's not Brian's" He said.

"And why is that?" I asked

"Brian doesn't know the difference between fearless and stupid." He told me "Like picking a fight with you in the bathroom."

"Actually I'm glad he did it." I told him

"Why?" Thomas asked

"Because otherwise he wouldn't have punched me and make a fool out of himself."

Thomas nodded. "Always the Erudite."

He was joking, but that was exactly what I was trying not to be.

I yawned "I suppose we should be getting to breakfast."

He pointed to my root beer "You probably want to leave that here."

I nodded.

**_Ok, another short one but you know what, hey, the story just sort of flows short yo_**

CHAPTER SEVEN

I knew how the gravity worked but it was really cool to see it in action as we walked to the lunch hall. Stop Ender-ooo I thought to myself. Be stupid and dauntless. You have to prove yourself. No thinking about how things work.

I had to be pure Dauntless. Pure and unchanging. Determined and brave. Stupid and Uneducated. STOP!

"Ender?" It was one of the recruits from Candor, I think. "You OK?"

He didn't call me it as a rude thing, I think he legitimately thought that was my name. I didn't correct him. "Yeah I'm fine. Just thinking." No need to tell everyone about my personal issues.

"Ender-ooo!" Four ran over.

"Four." I nodded towards him

"Walk with me." He demanded.

I followed him as we turned passed the math rooms, basic sciences, language labs, and the 3D printing machines. Finally, we stopped at a room with a pool in it. It took nearly 20 minutes to get there.

"Tell me- what do you see here?" He asked me

"A pool." I told him.

"Other than that." He told me "What do you see?"

"I see a holding tank for the unpurified water that we use at this stage to keep us from growing fat as we struggle in an environment with imperfect gravity and limited resources." I told him, unable to stop my big Erudite mouth.

"Correct." He told me. "Now I'm going to tell you what I see." He looked straight into my eyes, like he was sucking up my very soul. "I see a boy who is not a real dauntless. I see a boy who is not a real erudite and I see a boy who is not a real candor or amity, or abnegation. I see a divergent."

It was the first time anyone had actually said the words to me. I stared at him. Not sure what to say or do.

"Don't worry." He told me "There's no cameras in here. I just wanted you to know that 5% of people on this ship are. To put that in comparison, 0.7% on land are."

"How do you have such exact numbers?" I asked

"When you get upstairs you can be whatever you want, but not when you're downstairs. Hot Soup can still get to you for now." He avoided my question. I didn't press.

Instead, I let him control the flow of conversation "Hot Soup?"

"Han Tzu" He corrected himself. "Downstairs you call him Han Tzu."

I nodded. "Are you divergent?" I asked

"Just because there is no cameras doesn't mean we're upstairs. I'm just a guy with a lot of information."

"Four." I said, ignoring his answer "Like four factions. So which one don't you have?"

He raised his eyebrows "I'm doing you a favor boy. Just accept it and thank me."

I nodded and left.

When I finally got back to the dining hall I saw that my army was getting up to leave.

"What did he want?" Tris asked

"He wanted to ask me how the army was doing and I told him it was getting there but reminded him we've only been up here for a day."

"And that took an entire 40 minutes?" She wasn't buying it.

I shrugged "He wanted me to make a list of the top 10 kids in the army but I refused." Candor, I think not.

"Why?" She asked

"We've only been together for a day, and I've seen one battle. I haven't given a single order to anyone in the entire army and we haven't done anything as a group."

"True" Tris said

"Everyone!" The headmaster stood up "You may not leave just yet. I have an announcement."

Everyone sat back down. "As you are all aware, a new Dauntless group came up last afternoon." All of the Dauntless including my own banged their glasses on the table in appreciation. "And tonight a Candor is going to join them." Candor banged their glasses. "As is an Amity and Abnegation and Erudite." More glass thumping. "We are making another entire level, so all kings present, except for Ender who came last night," even the headmaster was calling me it now "Are now going to have a group below them. You are all responsible for them and all kings of the previous bottom floors are going to pick them up. This means that you all have a day off from classes in the lowest levels. Have fun."

Everyone cheered. We walked out as a group.

**_Alrighty, I'm feeling up for it so I'm likely to get another one out tonight._**

CHAPTER EIGHT

After classes were finished for the day we went back to the barracks. I went up the staircase and knocked.

There was silence. I knocked again, harder. Again, silence. I kept knocking for 5 minutes or so before I walked down the stairs. I went to the bathroom and unscrewed a pipe from the ceiling. Then I walked back up and broke down Four's door.

"What the hell!" He yelled at me.

"You wouldn't answer." I walked in. He was in his hot tub.

He got out and inspected the door, wearing only his underwear.

"Well you're talking to me now, what do you want?" He asked

"Why did my kingdom get here before the other ones did?" I noticed he had a mojito next to his tub.

"You broke it! You broke my door!"

"Yeah sorry, but seriously, why did we get here early?"

Four went in for a punch but I grabbed his hand before he managed to hit me.

"I'm not joking. What's the reason?" I demanded

"Dauntless just has a simpler initiation, now go back downstairs." He told me "Now."

I realized a piece of paper was in his fist, he was handing it to me without letting the cameras see.

"No." I told him "I don't want to. Where is there to go anyway?"

"I don't know." He told me, and I realized that everything had been staged. "Go make yourself a sandwich for all I care, just not here."

So my kitchen. "Fine." I told him, and staged a storm off.

I walked down to the bathroom, made sure that there wasn't a camera, and opened the letter.

_Dear Ender,_

_I'll be in your kitchen at 22:00 hour._

_Sincerely,_

_A friend._

It was scrawled quickly, whoever wrote it was in a hurry. I looked at the clock. It was 8. Two hours to wait.

I invited Tris, Thomas and a couple others into my room to waste time playing ping pong. I turned off both stair cases and we played game after game.

"Alright guys!" I said, when it was nearly ten "I'm going to sleep, as should you. See you all in the morning."

They left and I turned off the light, as if I was going to bed. After 4 minutes sitting in bed I walked down the stairs, making it look like I was going to go poop.

"Hello?" I asked, feeling extremely stupid

"About time you get here. You're three minutes late." I couldn't tell where the voice was coming from

"Look you were the one who wanted this meeting, what do you want?" I said, exasperated by his mysteriousness.

"It's not what I want." A small boy jumped out from the pipes in the ceiling. "It's what you want."

I stood, curious, but not truly scared.

"Shouldn't you not do that?" I pointed to the camera. "I assume you're not supposed to be here."

"Don't worry about the cameras. There of no concern to me."

I raised my eyebrows.

He rolled his eyebrows "I changed the image. They just see you making yourself a mac and cheese at the moment." He smashed some pots together to make small dents and dirtied them slightly "You need to be 'imperfect' as you do it of course."

"Why are you here?" I asked "I have homework to do and an army to watch out for.

"I need a place to sleep and this is that place."

"And why not go upstairs to Four's?" I asked "He knew you were around."

"They watch Four. The adults want to bust him. Whereas you haven't done anything important enough to have any enemies."

I nodded, taking the insult. "Why didn't you just come up with your faction?"

"I don't have one." He told me "Factionless need not apply."

"So how'd you get up here?" I asked

"Four." He told me "He got me up and in return I got him an army made up solely of Divergent, and then that stupid Brian kid came in and screwed it up. Oh well."

I frowned "How do you know?"

The boy rolled his eyes again "listen Ender, I know a lot. You don't. And that's okay, assuming you listen."

I raised my eyebrows "Remind me what's stopping me from just going up that staircase and telling everyone about you."

The boy smiled "Because you need me."

"Why?" I asked "I'm doing fine on my own."

"Brian." The boy said. "You're not doing fine, you have a Convergent."

"So?" I asked "I don't care."

"You will when it happens."

"When what happens?" I asked

The boy just smiled. He walked up the staircase and walked into Four's room.

"Bean." He said "So it's done?"

The boy nodded.

"Good." He said. "By the way Ender you really _do _owe me a door."

I nodded. "Who is this Bean guy and what's he doing in my room?"

"I'm the guy who's going to save your entire army's life." Bean said

I punched him in the stomach, I was done with the kid

"Sorry." I said "You have to take crap from upstairs. Now tell me one good reason, in detail, why I shouldn't just go tell on you right now."

"Okay." He was still in pain, though he tried to hide it "Because you have no idea how to get rid of Brian and I do."

"I'm listening."

"I can make it look like he's Divergent and no one else in your army isn't. Then, he'll be iced and you'll be golden."

"Or I could man up and take him on."

"Yeah you could, but you won't because you're part Erudite and would never do that."

I considered and nodded "I suppose that's true. So why is this in your interest?"

"We need an army that the serums don't work on. We need an army that nothing, not even something we don't know exists, could stop."

"And you need me to step down because I'm supposed to be a soldier not a commander in this army."

"No Ender, you are actually supposed to be the commander."

I raised my eyebrows "And why is that?"

Bean shrugged "Don't look at me."

Four spoke "Thaddeus. Ask Thaddeus."

"Okay" I said, and marched up the stairs.

Four grabbed me "What the hell do you think you're doing?"

"Asking Thaddeus." I told him "Now let me go."

"How can this kid possibly the divergent commander we're looking for?" Bean demanded "He's an idiot."

"I am not." I told him

"Really?" He asked "Tell me, how did you get here exactly? Oh right, you jumped off of a cliff into a giant hole where your 'initiation' was to not die while getting up." He walked towards me threatening me, despite being barely half my size.

"Do you have any idea what I've been through? Do you have any idea what I've had to do, just to be _alive?_ Of course you don't. You don't know a thing about the factionless. You don't know a thing about me."

"No." I told him "I don't. And just for a moment maybe you should think of this from my point of view. You are some random hideaway who has done nothing but tell me how much of an idiot I am and shown no respect at all and demanded to sleep in my room after breaking in through the ventilation. How can you possibly expect me to idolize you and do what you want."

"Stop acting like children!" Thaddeus came down the stairs from above. "You're all on the same team and it's time to start acting like it. Get down that stair case."

We obeyed. Thaddeus just reeked of 'listen-to-me-ness.'

He played with my pad, turning it so we could see my army.

"Out there are thirty seven of the best soldiers ever to be seen by mankind." He turned. "In here is the best strategist, best spy, the best ruler, and the best commander ever seen by mankind." He looked to me, then bean, then back to me. "The two of you are not going to screw this up for mankind over some petty dislike for one another. Suck it up. Be friends, be allies, be a couple for all I care, just get along and stop acting like children."

I nodded, as did Bean. We would both act civil.

**_Wow I am so good at banging this stuff out. Yall should write a comment about how awesome and hard-working I am… writing fanfiction isn't all fun and games you know… ok maybe it is… ok it is… but whatevs yo, write a comment._**

CHAPTER NINE

When I woke up the next day I saw a slip under my door. It told me I had the battle room from 18:00-22:00 for practice that night.

I went to breakfast with my army, leaving Bean in my room hacking into the cameras of the rest of my barracks. Since I had the kitchen and they had little gage on how much I needed to eat I was able to feed him without arousing any suspicion.

"Ender, tell me what's going on." Tris demanded in a whisper

"What are you talking about?" I asked, using a normal voice

"You're far too tired not to have been doing something last night. What did you do" She was adamantly whispering, with long intervals in between sentences, acutely aware of the cameras following our every move.

"Nothing." I whispered this time, despite my Erudite mind begging me to speak up.

We got to the dining hall. Immediately I saw the new factions. I walked straight over to the new Candor King to see if he knew anything more than I did about our situation. "How'd you guys get chosen?"

"They told us everything about what's up here and why we're going."

That was what I had hoped to hear. "So what's up here?"

"A battle school." He told me, with a straight face, as if he was serious.

"Obviously, but what else?" I demanded

"I don't like Dauntless. You guys are annoying and self-centered." The boy told me, not as an insult, more as a factual declaration.

"I don't like Candor." I told him, equally truthfully "You guys are hypocrites, you say you want everyone to know what's going on but yet you refuse to tell me why we're here."

"Now I don't like _you._" He told me. "But we're here because there's an alien life form we need to destroy."

"Can I be truthful?" I asked him

"Always." He answered

"Why's _your_ faction here? I get Erudite and Abnegation, even sort of Amity, but why on earth, excuse me, why _in space_ are you guys here?"

"Not everything is about being an army. This is why I don't like you or your faction."

"So what do you know about this alien life form?"

"Everything." He told me. "I know everything."

I rolled my eyes, exasperated. He knew nothing, despite his confidence that he knew all.

"Well thanks for the help." I said, then paused "That was a lie. I am sorry for my lie. That wasn't even slightly helpful."

"Wait." I had his attention now and he desperately wanted to prove his worth. "You don't even know what the aliens are called."

"Yes I do." I told him "Not us." I faked an exit again, confident that he would call me back and allow me to extract more info.

"They're called the Formics and they're going to kill us all unless we can stop them." He yelled after me.

"Okay, so what are you here for? Are you going to _truth_ them to death? Tell me, do you really think that some blab mouth like you walking up to them and saying something like 'you're ugly and you smell weird and I think I'm better than you because you're not a real person so I don't understand you'"

"No." He told me "I don't. We're here to represent our faction."

"So to be dead weight." I told him, confident his pride would get the better of him and make him give me any info he might have

"No." He said "We are going to be of use I'm sure."

I raised my eyebrows.

"Well how?"

"I can't tell you." He told me

"Well I appreciate your Candor" I dripped of sarcasm and walked to the Abnegation.

As I walked over I realized that this would likely make me look even more Divergent than I already did, but the fact was that I almost wanted to.

"Hello." I sat down next to their leader.

"Good morning." She was extremely formal and I couldn't tell if she wanted me there or not.

"When did you all get here?" I asked her

"Late last night. I unfortunately don't remember the exact time." She was still extremely uptight.

"Are you an Abnegation born or did you join yesterday?" I asked

"Two days ago" She corrected me "I joined two days ago."

I nodded. "From?"

"Dauntless." She told me, and for the first time I noticed the hole in her nose where an earring must have been.

"I was from Erudite." I told her. "Do you have any idea how many in your kingdom, excuse me queendom, are born compared to recruits?"

"Of the 39 of us 27 are newly recruited." She told me

As we continued the conversation I noticed more and more people looking our way. Not just from Abnegation and Dauntless but Candor, Erudite and Amity as well. I continued the conversation as if I didn't notice.

"There were 20 new recruits in mine. Just out of curiosity, how do you choose leaders in Abnegation?"

"I was chosen by the king above myself." She told me. "You?"

Slowly, she was losing her formality, though not her abnegated presence.

"We voted. What does your faction do as training up here?"

"We clean after the others and keep the ship running."

I put my hands up "Apologies for my faction's messiness, although I'm sure you know it far too well."

She nodded. "You have your hands full as king I'm sure." As soon as she said it she seemed to regret it as soon the words left her mouth.

"This is true." I saw some in her faction judging her in the way only Abnegation can. "Though it's not nearly as bad as you might think." I tried to save her face but also make it clear to all that I had done it. "I was lucky and got a good group, I can't say I really have faith in the way my faction chooses kids for the program but it worked out in the end."

"How do you choose?" It wasn't the queen, it was a boy who I could only guess was one of her lords

"We jump off a building into one of two giant holes that go down so far you can't see the bottom after being told that it's a special kind of Dauntless where we don't do anything in the normal Dauntless fashion or ever see our families again." I smiled "Yeah, I know you're probably all wondering but just too polite to ask, the people who jumped down the other one did in fact live, which I personally didn't expect."

Their leader shook her head in disbelief. "Here we were asked at random to join and of course we all said yes."

I nodded "Much more… normal." I smiled.

"Excuse me, my faction is probably worried." They all nodded and I left. I would speak with the other factions later.

"What was that?" Tris asked "What do you think you're doing?"

"What do you mean?" I played dumb for the cameras.

She dropped to a whisper, though I wasn't sure if it was to hide away from the cameras or the rest of our faction "Meet me in your room after practice."

"Fine" I whispered back.

**_Wow, I really have very little life to attend to- in the last three days I have managed to write nine chapters… Maybe this is my mid-highschool crisis… NAAAAAHHH_**

CHAPTER TEN

Practice. Our first practice, for all of us. I had no idea what I was doing, despite what Thaddeus might think.

Of course, I would never have even considered telling my army this. I had to at least pretend to know what I was doing.

"Alright everyone." I yelled, as we went into the null-gee room. "Since this is our first practice I first want merely to practice going from one wall to the opposite." At that moment, I had a realization. The enemy flag was down. The goal of the game was to fall down, steal it, and jump back up to your base.

I pointed "The enemy flag is always down. No matter where it is, orient yourself towards it. If it is close to our gate, where is down?"

There was a silence

"Where is down?" I asked again

"Next to our gate, sir." Tris was clearly modeling a soldier, like in the movies. I was thankful. We needed order.

"Good." I told her "And Thomas, what if it's over next to that star?"

"The star is down, sir." He caught on quickly to the formality.

"Good." I said "In this exercise, your goal is to fall down."

I fell to the flag and grabbed it. "I'm going to start slow. Get your footing. This is not a race, this is a team effort. Every one of you must get down before I move. On three everyone fall. One! Two! Three!"

They all pushed off as one, but at different speeds. Because of this they began to crash into one another and become a mess of bodies. I decided not to intervene just yet. They slowly sorted themselves out and everyone managed to get down to the flag.

"Where is up?" I asked Peter

He pointed.

"Good" I told him then turned to address everyone "Down?" They all pointed to me.

"Up?" I asked. They pointed. "No." I addressed everyone to my left. "Up is away from the flag. When Brian pointed that way he was correct, but only because of where he was standing. For all of you, up is that way, straight away from the flag."

I thought for a moment. "Everyone up!" All but Brian went to the proper place.

"Brian!" I yelled across the room, back at our gate "That's not up! That's sideways. Go up!"

He was clearly angry but he did as he was told.

"Good!" I yelled, so everyone throughout the room could hear. "Now everyone back down!"

They fell at me but then I jumped to one of the other walls, without either of the gates. This time everyone, including Brian, fell after me.

"Good." I told them, purposely holding on to the bars in such a way that it looked like I was holding onto the ceiling. "Now we must decide on names for the sides themselves. We will call the side we come in black. The one where the enemy flag starts white, that one is blue" I pointed to one opposite us "This is red, that's yellow and that's gray."

"Everyone go to blue!" They all flew up/down/over to blue.

"Good. Now fall back down."

We did this exercise for the first two hours, but we had another two left once the army had mastered the six colors and up and down.

"Alright everyone!" I yelled to them all. "We've had one scrimmage as a group and for everyone's first time it was pretty good, at least I think" I had to admit that I knew nothing more than they did if I was going to win their hearts as well as minds. "The fact of the matter is that we are all launchies and we don't know what we're doing. Any of us. However, we can fix that. We are all smart enough, brave enough, kind enough, truthful enough and selfless enough that we will succeed. It's not about playing some game with one another, it's about becoming a true army. We don't know what we're doing but the truth is we didn't even know this place existed before a few days ago." I looked around from face to face "And we won't know what we're doing when we fight the buggers. We need to be ready for anything and everything. If we lose a battle here, no one cares but us. But if we lose a battle against the buggers, it could cost us the planet, maybe even humanity itself. We need to be the best army the world, no the galaxy has ever seen. I'm not your king, I'm your Commander. We don't have lords, we have Toon leaders. We are not a feudal settlement, we are an army. We are the army."

CHAPTER ELEVEN

"I liked your speech" Bean was up the stairs moments after I walked into my room and fell in one heap down onto my bed

I looked up over the pillow I had just buried my face in "You were there?"

"No" He told me "One of my cameras was. I myself was upstairs trying to find out how to make an opening into the battle room."

"What?" I asked, confused now as well as exhausted

"The battle room is up there, I assume you know how the gravity works?" He wasn't talking down to me, which I greatly appreciated after the night before.

"Of course, it's a giant donut, circling around at crazy speed pushing us to the outside, meaning that gravity is directly away from the center, and the battle room is in the center of the first, or highest, floor." I had seen on the way up "That's why the gravity on the second and third floors are stronger than that of the first. It's also why we are always walking up hill. But how can you make a hole in the battle room a secret? And what point is there?"

"All the other level one kingdoms have a place just like this. If we could find a way to open it, we would be in contact with the Abnegation, the Erudite, all of them except for Candor for obvious reasons."

"Ok." I thought about it for a moment "What about higher up the command? I'm sure Abnegation and Amity would let us up their stairs, but Erudite? To be honest I think that there is much more likely to be interesting things upstairs of Erudite than Abnegation and Amity."

"We'll figure it out, it'll take a while, but we'll figure it out." Bean sat down on the ping pong table.

"Have you ever noticed the step up to my room?"

"And how it's flat in here? Yes."

"The same is true upstairs right?"

"Yes." He said, his eyes now wide "Meaning that the sides of the kitchen have thicker gaps between it and the null-g above while the middle is thinner."

I nodded "All we would need is a sledge hammer, and there can't be anything expensive or important in the middle of the ceiling-"

"Because it's all on the outskirts of the room." He got up "Follow me downstairs."

I looked mournfully at my pillow for a moment, noting with more than a pang of jealousy that my entire 'army' except Tris, who must be in the bathroom or something, was all at least on their way to sleep. "Fine."

Once upstairs I climbed up onto the top of the kitchen counter, unfortunately I was still not tall enough to reach the ceiling. "I assume you already tampered with the camera in the battle room?"

Bean nodded "Of course."

"Good." I jumped, trying to grab onto the ceiling in order to stab it. Then I stopped.

I jumped off of the counter top and onto the floor. "Help me move the fridge."

"To the middle of the room?" Bean asked, straining with the weight of it

I shook my head, putting it down "Just away from the wall. Do you have any idea what is on the other side of this wall?"

Bean smiled, toyed around with his desk for a minute, then frowned. "No."

It was my turn to smile "Guess we'll find out."

I poked a tiny peep hole just about an inch off of the ground, just big enough for an eye to see through.

"Nothing." I said, astonished, "just a big empty room without any entrances."

I put my mouth to the hole and sucked "There's air though."

"Let me see." Bean pushed me aside.

"Give me the knife" He demanded, after staring nearly an entire minute.

He cut the hole, making it just large enough to put a hand through.

"Put it through." He demanded of me "My arm's too dark to pass as yours if there's a camera."

"If there's a camera, they've seen us already and are one the way here right now. You may as well put your whole head through, there's no difference."

Bean shrugged, clearly seeing the logic in this. He enlarged the hole to the point that anyone could easily crawl through.

I nodded, and he was through. I climbed in after him. The room was exactly what I would have expected, a large, empty cavern, the same size as the barracks not including my room only smaller.

You could easily see the circular nature of the room. The sides were tilted inwards very obviously and the ground curved equally obviously.

It had cement walls on the far side and the middle part, where my kitchen and bathroom were, was wood. The wood was ugly on this side of the wall.

The ceiling was the battle room. It spun, or more realistically, we spun about 40 miles an hour.

It was really cool to see. I thought for a moment. "Do you happen to have any nails and scrap wood?"

"I have wood but not nails." Bean said. "Unless there's some in here."

I walked around to the other side of my kitchen. There were nails, but that's not really what caught my attention. Tris and Four were naked on a small cot together. That's what caught my attention.

CHAPTER TWELVE

"What are you doing here?" Tris demanded, pulling her shirt back on as quickly as possible

"I might ask you the same question." I said

"Four and I've been coming here for a week and a half." She said "He found this place first."

Bean walked into view. "Hi Tris, you don't know me but we don't mean to bother you and your boyfriend." He paused "Actually, that's a lie, we need your help."

"I assume you're trying to get to the battle room?" Four, who was now clothed, asked

I nodded "Have you managed to do it?"

"No." He said "We move the wrong direction, you have to go right over Erudite and Candor assuming you take the ferry." He pointed at the battle room side.

I nodded "In that order?"

Considering that she didn't know who Bean was or why he was here, Tris was taking this surprisingly well. The two of them walked off together with the nails and some wood which was lying around as Four and I continued our talk.

"Who's right there?" I pointed to the side the ferry didn't go.

"Abnegation." Four told me

"And Amity?"

"Right next to them." He said.

I was confused. "There all on this side?

Four nodded. "I have no idea what's on the other, no one does."

"Who have you asked?"

"Erudite, Abnegation, even a Candor boy."

I raised my eyebrows at his foolish blunder but continued in spite of it. "Come on, we're going to Erudite."

I walked over to the other side, next to the door. Tris and Bean were just finishing up hammering the last piece of wood in, making a ladder up to the top of my bathroom.

There was about 3 feet between the top of my room and the wall of the battle room. Tris grabbed on to a large pipe going parallel to the movement of the rest of the school. She clung tightly on to it and had soon disappeared on the other side of the wall. She was in Erudite.

Bean followed suit quickly behind, and as I grabbed hold I had a split second of panic, how were we going to get back? I decided we would find out when we got there, and, hoping to god that Erudite knew how to go backwards, I flew over the wall and into the abyss.

I saw that Bean and Tris were safely on the ground nearer to us but I decided not to jump. I waited until I got above their commander's suit and dropped gently on top of a pillow up there.

I looked around me. There were books set up sporadically throughout and even stairs going down. I knew that they must have personal cameras and that our presence was known. I looked around for a moment. It was amazing, everything was painted white, they had a door leading into it, there was even a landing pad on the ferryfar side of the room.

Tris and Bean walked up behind me and Four followed close behind.

I knocked on their door.

A boy in glasses and a T-Shirt that said _E=MC 2 TOO THE MAX_ greeted me by pushing open the door in my face. "What did you talk about when you spoke to Abnegation and Candor the first day that we arrived? What information was shared?"

Tris raised her eyebrows "Nice to meet you too."

I seemingly ignored her comment, though I myself had been thinking it. "I was gathering information. I assume you know by now that we're here to battle the Formics, an alien species."

The boy squinted, then nodded. It was clear that he had not, but if he wanted to pretend that was fine by me. "Yes, of course. Who are they?" He pointed to Bean and Four.

"Higher Kings of Dauntless." I lied. "That's Four and that's Thaddeus."

The boy nodded. "What do you want?"

It was a good question. What did I want? "May we come in? We have a few questions you may be able to answer."

He stood, considering for a moment. "In return, you need to get me access to your alcohol. It can be used for lots of experiments."

I looked to Four. "Fine. But only if you fix our problem, and you get 10 liters a week."

He nodded. "Come on in."

"What's your name again?" I asked the king.

"Bonzo." He said. "Bonzo Madrid."

I nodded. "You were a Dauntless recruit no?" he carried himself like Brian.

"Yeah. So?" He demanded

I shook my head. "Just wondered."

We walked down the stairs to his main barracks. It was completely different than Dauntless. While we both had four corners, ours each held a queen sized bed, Erudite had set up a workshop in one, a computer center in another, a library in the third and a small laboratory. They were all bunk beds and the rest of the space was filled with what looked to me like a cluttered mess of crap, but I'm sure meant a lot to its owners.

Inside of Bonzo's area was a ping pong table like I had, only his was also a pool table or air hockey at the push of a button. I have to admit that honestly, I was unimpressed. I expected a school room. I expected to see Exeter and Andover crests all over. I expected a school, but what I got was a dorm.

"Do you have a hologram of the school?" Bean, or _Thaddeus_ asked.

"No." Bonzo said. I noticed that all of his army was asleep except for one boy.

"Who is that?" I asked

"Hot Soup." Bonzo explained. "And he should be asleep."

Hot Soup was staring directly at me, as if he could somehow see through the one way glass.

I stared at him for what felt like a long time, he didn't blink, and neither did I.

"Ender, look out behind you!" Four's voice cracked when he screamed it

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Every single bed was suddenly empty, their deserters were all now standing, guns in hand. Real guns. I was nearly as amazed as I was scared. Erudite? We didn't even have guns in my barracks, I wasn't even sure whether Four did.

I stared straight at Bonzo, unflinching. "What seems to be the problem?"

"The battle room is ours at night, along with the attic. Do you understand me?"

I raised my eyebrows. "Excuse me?"

Bonzo walked forward "Don't test me boy."

The Erudite were older than my army. At least last year's crop, maybe even the year before. They had been trained for the battle school, my question was simply what they had been trained to do, and when they planned to do it.

Bean stepped up to Bonzo, the size difference was extremely apparent, yet Bean looked vastly more frightening. "If you touch any of these kids, I'll tell my army and all of Dauntless will come crashing down on you. Not your faction, just you. You're supposed to be smart right? Well let me explain something to you; that would not be good. At all."

A bead of sweat dropped off of Bonzo's forehead, though he tried to play it off. "You're right. Which is why none of you will be saying anything, for a Very. Long. Time." His hand was shaking as he lifted the barrel to my forehead so much so that despite knowing it was loaded it was hard to convince myself I was scared.

The boy named _Hot Soup_ ran over "Stop it Bonzo. Now." He stuck his hand between the barrel and my head. It was a nice gesture but all I could think was that it takes only as much strength to break a finger as it does to snap a carrot. Suddenly Bonzo's shaky hand seemed far less amusing.

There was a standstill of what felt like hours as Bonzo turned to Hot Soup

"You dare? You dare to question my orders in front of my entire kingdom and three kings of Dauntless?" I saw as Bonzo's gun turned away from my temple and towards Hot Soup's.

I looked away for only a second, glancing at Four. What my Dauntless eyes caught, none of the Erudite, who were viewing through what I now realized must have just been pure, untinted glass for the moment, was that Four's hand was on a pocket sized pistol. It turned out that the Dauntless kingdom above me was armed, or at least their king.

Hot Soup, I realized, had seen it too. He was backing away from Bonzo, but he was also turning the attention further from Four.

"Bonzo, please Bonzo.." Hot Soup's muttering was astounding, either he was one of the most cowardice boys I had ever seen or he knew Bonzo's attention could only be captivated by a squealing mouse in a corner.

I knew I couldn't risk looking backward at Four or any of the others, but the amount of will power that this required was astounding.

Don't look, don't look, don't look—

"Drop your gun" I could look.

Four had his pistol at Bonzo's throat.

Bonzo's gun clattered on the ground. I picked up the gun instantaneously, turning to the stairwell leading down to the stronger Erudite kingdoms.

Four looked out the glass, raising his voice "That goes for all of you!"

Some of the kids put their guns down quickly, others more reluctantly so.

"You." Four nodded towards Hot Soup "Pick up all the guns and bring them back here, or else he dies.

Hot Soup didn't seem as reluctant to do this as he should have.

Soon, around 50 guns were at Four's feet. "Bean, Tris, Ender, pick them up. We're leaving."

Bonzo protested pathetically but Four merely pressed his pistol harder into his temple and Bonzo fell silent.

Tris, Bean and I walked up the stairs first with all of the pistols. I don't know what happened from there but Four's pistol didn't go off before he walked back up after us, though it was longer than it should have been.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

The next morning I woke up to the sound of yelling in my barracks.

I walked outside and saw a standard size sheet of paper. On it, was stated such:

_Dauntless Kingdom One,_

_We regret to inform you that your king,_

_Andrew Wiggin, will be leaving your army because we learned that he was actually pretending to be Dauntless in order to infiltrate our society. In truth, he is an Erudite spy and therefore we are putting him back in the kingdom belonging to one Bonzo Madrid_

_Sincerely,_

_Your Higher Kings_

I stood dumbstruck for a moment as the entire army stared straight at me.

"Forget him guys!" Yelled Brian "He's hurt us enough with his lies, just let him go!"

A few kids followed Brian away, but the vast majority ignored him and were still looking at me for answers, to deny it, to do _something_.

"I'll be back." I told them "This is a mistake. I'll be back."

But I knew it was not a mistake, the higher Dauntless kings, above even Thaddeus and Four, were puppets of Erudite. They were punishing me because they knew that those kings weren't attached to me the way they were to Four and supposedly Bean.

I had had literally a dozen guns in my hands. I could have shot every last one of them and now, instead, I was going to have to go and work for Bonzo and those very same kids who just last night had tried to kill me.

Tris walked over "What do you want me to do? With the guns I mean."

"Win the kingdomship over Brian." I told her "And keep the guns hidden at all costs. I'll be back, don't worry about me, just keep the army safe and be ready in case Erudite attacks. And not just from upstairs. They could come from downstairs too."

_They could come from downstairs too._ Those words rang through my skull all the time as I walked over to my new kingdom. _They could come from downstairs too._

I walked into my new faction. Silence. Absolute silence. No one spoke to me and no one whispered to one another. Everyone looked yet no one moved.

"Where do I sleep?" I asked them

Silence. Hot Soup came around the corner from the other side of the main room.

"Yes there's an open bed, follow me."

I was grateful for his help, and noticed that he walked with a limp. Had he done that last night or was I responsible? What had Bonzo done? Where was Bonzo? What would happen to me?

Hot Soup pointed to one of two cots. The other must have been his. I tried to remember what his bed had been last night. Had it been a queen? I just couldn't remember. Whatever it had been, it used to be better than it was now.

The entire wall turned Blue. Bold letters stated

**BREAKFAST TIME; HOUR EIGHT HUNDRED**

Hot Soup nodded to me to follow him.

The breakfast table was the first time that I saw Bonzo since last night. Everyone in the entire kingdom was as far to one side of the table as possible. I sat next to one girl and she got up to sit elsewhere. I scooched over to sit next to what appeared to be her boyfriend when he too left. I got the message.

_No one is allowed to sit with the noob. He's off limits._

About half of the kids in the army had been at my school last year but I knew that trying to talk to them and associating them with myself wouldn't be doing them any favors.

I got up from the table and walked over to Candor.

"Why are you here?" Asked their king "And why were you with Erudite?"

"Erudite is my new faction because supposedly I was spying for them."

"Is it true?"

"No." I told him. "If I were going to betray Dauntless it sure as hell wouldn't be to Erudite."

"Who would it be to?"

I let my eye twinkle. Í shrugged.

"Why are you here? At my table that is?" He asked

"To sit here. I have friends in Dauntless but I can't exactly walk straight back there and talk to them. For their own safety they can't be seen with me."

The boy nodded "Whereas my safety…"

"Isn't a concern. No one wants to mess with Candor, you have nothing of value to either Dauntless or Erudite. All fighting you would accomplish is a severe head ache for the attacker."

He nodded "The same is true for Abnegation and Amity."

"True" I told him "But going to sit with Amity makes you look desperate."

"Which you are."

I nodded "But talking to the commander of Candor makes it look like I still have power."

"Do you?" He asked

"None." I lied, but was sure not to sound too convincing.

The Abnegation commander came over and whispered in my ear. "I just wanted to let you know that Erudite doesn't appear too happy that you're not sitting with them."

I nodded, scooching over on the bench, making room for the girl, knowing she wouldn't refuse such a clear gesture.

She sat. "I'm serious Ender, this is a bad idea."

"It depends on what my goal is." I told her.

"And what is your goal?" The boy to my left, a Candor Lord, asked me.

"I want to defeat the buggers."

A murmur went down the table, clearly more Candor were listening than I had thought.

"And you think making Erudite kill you is going to achieve that?" The Abnegation leader whispered in the way Abnegation always do.

"I think making sure Erudite and Dauntless don't go to war is one of the steps."

"War?" All of Candor it seemed had perked up and were a part of the conversation now. "What do you mean war?"

"Ender!" One of Bonzo's beefier looking kids was standing behind me "Let's go."

I took my time turning to look at him "Sorry?"

"You heard me." He glanced nervously back at Erudite "Let's go."

I remembered what he had looked like last night, a gun facing me. He had been a frightful sight then, now, not so much.

I stood. He was taller than me, but he seemingly shrank as I stood.

"Just leave him be Ender." It was the Abnegation Commander.

"She's right." One of the lords of Candor grabbed my arm.

I glanced back at them. I had power. I shrugged the lord off of my arm and walked back with Bonzo's Meat to sit at Erudite. Everyone moved over a seat to make a seat for me next to Hot Soup and Bonzo himself.

As soon as I sat down Bonzo grabbed the back of my head and slammed me into the table.

My nose immediately began to bleed.

"If you ever do that again I will kill you. Do you understand me?" He wasn't yelling. His voice wasn't even raised, but he was furious.

I couldn't help but smile. I had the power. Half of Dauntless was on their feet, ready to attack. Abnegation leaders were already walking over with a stretcher. Candor were all seemingly holding onto their forks and butter knives with a bit more fervor and even Amity seemed to be arguing with one another about what to do.

Bonzo took his hand off of me and let me rise. I did, and then got up, walking over to the opposite side of the table, as far away from Bonzo as was possible to go.

Hot Soup followed. Tris walked over too, along with the commanders of Candor and Abnegation.

We sat in silence for a moment. "I'm the King now in case you were wondering." Tris said to the group.

"I see." The girl from abnegation spoke in the kind, but not all that interested way that they often do in her faction, purely for conversation's sake. Not because she was legitimately interested, but because it was the right thing to do. However, I was interested. Very interested.

"What was the vote split?"

"Nine voted for Brian" She told me

I nodded. This was good. This was very good. I had expected it to be much closer. No, actually, that wasn't true. I had expected for Tris to get only nine or so. The fact that she had won at all surprised me.

"I'm Petra by the way." The commander from Abnegation told us.

"Tris. I assume you all know Ender already."

They both nodded.

"Tell me more about your plan." The King of Candor had walked over. All kings were present except for Amity and Erudite.

"We need to survive as a race." I said "And in order to do that, we need to beat the buggers."

"The buggers?" Petra asked

"They're a different form of life living on a distant planet coming our way in order to take over the earth." The king of Candor interjected excitedly.

I nodded "They are only three years from getting here." I didn't know that this was true, but it made me sound like I knew my stuff and at that moment knowing my stuff was exactly what I needed.

**PLEASE RETURN TO YOUR DORMITORIES BEFORE CLASSES BEGIN; HOUR EIGHT HUNDRED THIRTY**

I got up to leave. "We'll talk soon." I told them all as I left. Hot Soup followed me out the door and we were soon among the rest of Erudite.


End file.
